Alan Greenspan, hailed as the greatest Federal Reserve chairman when he retired in 2006 but ridiculed for the massive financial crisis that followed two years later, died Monday at the age of 100, NBC News reported.
Greenspan, who had a major influence on the US economy during his tenure at the Fed from August 1987 to January 2006, died at his home due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, NBC reported, citing his wife Andrea Mitchell, who is the station’s chief Washington correspondent.
Greenspan oversaw the second longest economic expansion in US history, an uninterrupted decade of growth from March 1991 to March 2001.
His decision to let the economy run – despite pressure to raise interest rates against the threat of inflation that never materialized – helped fuel the American prosperity years and made him a superstar as an economic “maestro”.
The era was marked by his pragmatic decision that increased productivity in the mid-1990s would prevent inflation.
His protocol at the time remains a touchstone for policymakers, and has been cited by former Fed chairman Jerome Powell as an example of how judgment can sometimes trump technical economic models.
